


Pretty When You Cry

by DaniStormborn



Series: Life is Beautiful [1]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:05:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5820682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaniStormborn/pseuds/DaniStormborn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew she would snap and call that scar ugly if he said anything about it. And no matter how much he knew she wished it to be gone, he didn’t think like that. </p><p>That scar didn’t make her ugly, or pretty, or even beautiful. No . . .</p><p>No, Boone thought that scar made her gorgeous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretty When You Cry

**Author's Note:**

> Herein lies the story of my Courier and her constant companion, Craig Boone, in which feelings are reconciled, pushed away, then reconciled again. Includes unrequited romance, a very evil Lone Wanderer, and tales of rising above past trauma. 
> 
> Will eventually include past remembrances of an abusive relationship, and other vomit-inducing fluff. You all have been warned.
> 
> But I hope you stay. I really do like this one :)
> 
> Cast List:  
> Craig Boone: Jason Statham  
> Roseline: Juno Temple (brunette)  
> Lone Wanderer: (Young) Marlon Brando  
> Pacer: (Young) Michael Madsen

* * *

 

_“I knew the second I met you that there was something about you I needed. Turns out it wasn’t something about you at all. It was just you.”_

_––Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire_

 

* * *

 

She wasn’t what he expected, the first time he saw her approaching Novac through the lenses of his scope.

 

But really, Boone didn’t know what the fuck he had expected the first time he really saw her up close later. She had been talking with Manny outside the Dino, and he had been on his way there for his nightshift. She was young – couldn’t have been more than twenty-two at the most, seventeen at the least. A plasma rifle – a strange looking one – was slung across her back, with a 10mm submachine gun at her hip. A knapsack bulging with stuff, was also slung over her shoulder and across her back. She was olive-toned -- not tanned, like a lot of people who spent their lives wandering the wastelands, often were -- but actually, genuinely, naturally, Honest-to-God, olive-skinned. Her hair was black as crow’s feathers, and if he looked close enough, he was pretty damn sure she _had_ feathers hanging down from the delicate lobes of her ears.

 

What in the actual _fuck_? Who the hell was this chick? And why the hell was she all the way out in bum-fuck Novac?

           

Hell, not even _he_ wished he was in Novac anymore!

           

He ignored the two of them, though, and continued on his way to the door leading to the Dino, despite the feel of her eyes boring into his back. Glancing over his shoulder at her before he opened the door and slid into the relative coolness of the Dino Bite Gift Shop, he saw her remaining in front of Manny as he spoke, hip cocked slightly, and her arms crossed over her chest. Her head was canted slightly to the side, with a curious expression on her face as she gazed at him. The expression sent a shiver over him, and like magic, he knew he would have a visitor that night.

           

Didn’t know if he looked forward to it or not. But then again . . . why would he?

                                                                                 

* * *

 

 Her eyes were green – a bright, emerald green that matched the intensity of his own. However, hers were much more luminous, and positively shone in the darkness of the night that surrounded them from within the open maw of the dinosaur they were standing in. Either she had just taken some Cat-Eye, or she had been subject to some pretty unique radiation in her travels.

           

 _And_ she had snuck up behind him. She had _actually_ managed to sneak up behind him. He was impressed, no matter how much he didn’t wanna be, and no matter how much irritation licked at his nerves because of that. Somehow, she had managed to climb the stairs leading up to the nest, without setting one foot on the one that screamed like a cat with its tail being stepped on, and somehow – _somehow_ – she had opened the door to the nest, with it’s rusty ass hinges and all, and all without him knowing about it. Either she weighed a lot less than he thought she did, or she was _really_ good at sneaking around places that didn’t concern her.

           

And judging by the small, innocent, and slightly amused smile on her face, it was the second one more than the first.

           

He had been up there, scanning the horizon -- occasionally through his scope -- and his thoughts positively saturated with Carla (like they often were these days), when her voice split through the still air that had been surrounding him, causing him to jump, and his heart to practically burst out of his chest with alarm. Spinning around on his heels, he saw her standing there. That same small, almost amused smile referenced to earlier, was still on her face as she repeated what she had said:

           

“Quite a view up here, huh?”

           

He shook his head, his alarm disappearing in favor of that cool anger that had taken up residence within him since Carla’s death.  “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.” He spoke, and her smile widened slightly as she took a few steps closer to him and the rough-hewn wooden teeth that arched around them. Her eyes were scanning the horizon like his had been, however, instead of hers being the cold chips of ice that his were, hers held a gleam of awe that almost made him smile.

           

Almost.

           

“What do you want?”

           

She glanced at him upon his words being spoken on a tone much ruder than he had thought it had been. Her smile remained, though, as she returned her eyes onto the horizon. “Expecting visitors?”

           

He arched a brow as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Yeah . . . I guess maybe I am. But not like you.”

           

He took that moment after his words to quickly run his eyes up and down her frame, as if making _sure_ that the company he was expecting was _not_ someone like her. She was pretty, maybe even beautiful, but that was pushing it, he thought. She was smaller than she had seemed outside when she had been talking to Manny; her head only came up to his chin. Her hair was darker than he had thought too, maybe even bordering on a blue-black, but that might just be a trick of the darkness that surrounded them. She _was_ curvier than he had seen on fleeting first glance, though – all round hips, small waist, and big, full breasts. She was built like one of those pre-war pin-up girls they had found on posters in some of the old war bunkers and abandoned factories. He wanted to chuckle, and almost did – managed to curb it off into a clearing of his throat – at the thought of how badly Manny would have been itching to eye her up while talking to her.

           

Boone had never been interested in those pictures and posters – not like Manny and some of the others on the team had. Some of them had even become veritable collectors of them. With Boone, though, Carla had always been more than enough for him.

           

And there _were_ feathers, too, hanging down from the lobes of her ears – he _had_ seen right. Three on each ear: black on her left, and a blue, green, and red on her right.

           

They were unique feathers, those three on her right. The left were clearly a crow’s breast feathers, but _those_ three . . . Boone couldn’t help but wonder where she had gotten them from.

           

“Actually . . .” He spoke, slowly, and before he could stop himself. “Maybe it should have been you I was expecting all along . . .” The smile disappeared from her face. She turned a look of interest and thinly veiled confusion onto him as he continued: “Why are you here?”

           

Shaking her head, that look remained on her face as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and answered him: “If you’re looking for someone in particular, I can always tip you off if I see them . . .” She spoke, trailing off, and he nodded and released a caustic laugh.

           

“Yeah, well, you see anyone wearing Legion crimson or a lot of sports equipment, you just let me know, okay?” There was silence for a moment. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

           

She nodded. “I know.”

           

“Then what is it? Why are you up here?”

           

He was getting tired of asking her that question. Thankfully, he looked like he wouldn’t have to ask her a fourth time. She simply gave another nonchalant shrug and returned her eyes onto the horizon. An almost serene smile was on her face now, instead of the small, amused one. “It’s an amazing view. That, and I just like meeting new people.”

           

His tone was hard and steeped in irritation when he answered her: “I think you better leave.”

           

She gave a little laugh. “Hey, there, now! Just looking for some friendly conversation! That isn’t a crime, is it?”

           

He shook his head. “I don’t have friends here.”

           

Her expression fell again at those words – her smile disappearing in favor of another look of confusion and . . . was that _sadness_ in her eyes? “You don’t?”

           

He shook his head again, choosing to ignore that look of anger-inducing sadness in her gaze. “No. I haven’t for a long time, now.”

           

The smile she gave him this time, was a soft one. It was one that turned her eyes positively doe-like, and one that made a shiver skate up his spine. It was a shiver he done well to pass by unheeded. “Well, good thing I’m not from around here, then, huh?”

           

 _Obviously_ , He thought, but he shook his head slowly, instead. Come to think of it . . . maybe he _did_ have a use for her . . .

           

“No . . . no, you’re not, are you? Maybe you shouldn’t go, come to think of it . . .”

 

In hindsight, his voice might have been a _little_ bit too “come-hither”, than he had intended, but at the time, he honestly hadn’t noticed it. He was steeped too deeply into the new plan that had been spontaneously forming in his mind. What he _had_ noticed, was the little shiver she gave at the sound of his voice, however, even this he attributed to the slight breezes that would occasionally roll in. Until that damnable hindsight came later, of course, and he realized what they had really been about.

 

“And why’s that?” She asked, her voice quieter than he had thought it would be.

 

“I need someone I can trust. You’re a stranger. That’s a start.”

 

The look of curiosity and thinly veiled confusion was back in place as she gazed at him now. She had a splattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, Boone noticed. It was cute.

 

On her, though, it was just another thing that ratcheted her “pretty” looks closer up to “beautiful”.

           

“I want you to find something out for me,” He spoke, and she nodded as he continued: “I don’t know if there’s anything to find, but I need someone to at least try. My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was up here on watch,” Her eyes widened and a look of sympathy appeared in them, however, he powered on before he could hear those insufferable words of: “I’m sorry” fall from those plump lips of hers. “They knew when to come, and what route to take, and they only took Carla. Someone set it up. I just don’t know who.”

           

“So you’re trying to track down your wife?” She asked, her voice that same quiet, slow tone it had been, and he heaved a sigh, the words coming a little bit harder from his lips than he had thought they would.

           

“My wife’s dead. I want the son of a bitch who sold her.”

           

There was a heavy, pervasive silence for a moment, until she broke it again. “When I find this person . . . what do you want me to do with them?”

           

“Bring him or her out in front of the nest here the next time I’m on duty. I work nights. I’ll give you my NCR beret to wear. It’ll be our signal, so I know you’re standing with him or her. I’ll take care of the rest. I need to do this myself.”

           

There was another long, pervasive silence. She was thinking, he knew, weighing her options and the outcomes of this like a smart person would. After a moment, she nodded, the look on her face one of determination. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll find out who sold your wife.” She told him, and he nodded as he reached up and took the maroon colored beret off his head. Handing it to her, she took it from him and held it in front of her stomach as he spoke.

           

“Good. I’ll make it worth your while, I promise. One more thing, though: we shouldn’t speak again. Not until it’s over. No one in town knows that I know what happened to my wife. Best they never know. Or the Legion will be after me next.”

           

“How . . . how do you know your wife is dead, though?” She asked, and Boone gazed at her for a moment, his eyes scanning her features through the dark tints of his shades. Her gently furrowed brow, her luminous green eyes, and splattering of freckles. Her pouty lips that he _knew_ had Manny’s mind all in another kind of tizzy, and all framed with black hair and fluttering feathers. Oh yeah, she wasn’t just pretty. She _was_ beautiful.

           

And Boone hardly noticed.

           

“Call it a hunch.” He eventually spoke, his voice cryptic and mysterious, and she nodded, knowing better than to question further. Deep in her eyes, though, he could see her uncertainty, and for the first time in a long time, a feeling of ever-so-slight guilt settled in his stomach. What was he doing? He had no business making a good person do this. This was _his_ revenge scheme, not . . . not this young woman’s who had rolled into town just that day!

           

But then one of those scant Mojave breezes blew through, ruffling her hair to the side, and he saw it. There, on her temple – as clear as day -- was the knotted, jagged, twisted, and ugly star-shaped scar of a hole left by one mean bullet. The scar tissue was fresh and pink, he knew, despite there being inadequate light to see it by, and it was then that he noticed the expression in her eyes. She had adopted the expression upon noticing that he had caught sight of the very recently acquired scar. They were hard now, and cold – hard, and cold, and positively unforgivable. There was nothing kind and gentle in them, anymore. They were the eyes of a woman who had been fucked over and fucked over _hard_ , just like him. They weren’t so different, after all, it seemed.

           

And while he knew she would snap and call that scar ugly, and no matter how much he knew she wished it to be gone, he didn’t think like that.

           

That scar didn’t make her ugly, or pretty, or even beautiful. No . . .

           

No, Boone thought that scar made her _gorgeous_.

                                                                                    

* * *

 

He watched her a little as she went about the task he had given her, impressed and pleased to see that she was taking it more seriously than he had thought she would have. He watched as she questioned people with a finesse and casualness that appeared as little more than the curiosities of a naïve outsider, new to Novac. He saw a look of slight sympathy cross her face when she talked with No-bark, the flirtatious grin and laugh, and slight blush that refused to leave with Manny. Daisy Whitman caused her to smile, too, but in a different way – the way a young woman looks at an older woman they are quickly growing to respect and admire.

           

That all changed the _second_ she spoke with Jeannie May Crawford, the owner of the hotel and the de factor mayor of Novac. She originally approached her with a bright, friendly smile on her face like she had with everyone, however, that smile disappeared into one of expressionlessness the longer they stood talking. When they finally parted and went their separate ways, the woman had stood there for a moment longer, and watched the older one go, arms crossed in front of her chest and that same expressionless look on her face as she slowly ran the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip. However, there was another emotion tinging that look of expressionlessness, and that was thoughtfulness.

           

She was on to something, Boone could tell. The realization sent a dark tremor of excitement running throughout his body. It was close, his revenge. So close, he could almost _taste_ it!

           

And this young woman was going to give it to him.

                                                                                    

* * *

 

When she showed up that night, he was both surprised and not, to find that it had been Jeannie May Crawford who had accompanied her. While the old woman talked animatedly (as she was known to do) the woman walked slowly beside her, arms crossed in front of her chest, and her head bowed, eyes cast to the dry, cracked earth beneath them. Boone’s maroon colored beret was clutched in one hand, and for a moment, he was unsure if she was going to go along with it. When they first arrived in the correct spot in front of the dinosaur, the woman even stood in _line_ with his scope, shielding the old woman from that inevitable bullet through the head, with her own. However, after a moment, she slowly placed the beret on her head, and stepped aside.

           

The sharp crack that split through the air, was practically deafening. The sight of Jeannie May Crawford’s body slumping to the dusty ground like a sack of potatoes, well . . . Boone saw the woman close her eyes against the sight and flinch through his scope before he lowered the gun. This didn’t bother him in the least. Some people weren’t made to see such things.

           

She stayed where she was beside the body, causing Boone to have to come to her. When he approached her, she watched him, arms still crossed in front of her chest. His beret was still on her head too – probably forgot to take it off in the span of time it took for the bullet to travel through the barrel of his gun and through the now deceased mayor’s head -- and he had to admit . . . the sight was a good one, all things considered. She looked good in maroon, and a beret fit everyone.

           

“That’s it then,” He spoke when he finally reached her. “How did you know?”     

           

She jumped when he spoke, almost as if she hadn’t known he would. She shook her head as she almost yanked the beret from her head before shoving it at him. He took it from her calmly and passively, and returned it to his own head as she replied to him: “Her story didn’t make much sense to me,” She began rifling through her pockets as she spoke, looking for something. “So I snuck in and snooped through the hotel lobby when she wasn’t around. I found this in the safe . . .” She withdrew a badly crumpled piece of paper and handed it to him. Her eyes were sad as he took it from her. “It’s a, uh . . . it’s a _receipt_.”

           

_“We, the representatives of the Consul Officiorum, have this day bargained and purchased from Jeannie May Crawford of the township of Novac, the exclusive rights to ownership and sale of the slave Carla Boone, for the sum of one thousand bottle caps, and those of her unborn child for the sum of five hundred bottle caps, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged. We warrant the slave and her young to be sound, healthy, and slaves for life. We covenant with the said Jeannie May Crawford, that we have full power to bargain and sell said slave and her offspring. Payment of an additional five hundred bottle caps will be due pending successful maturation of the fetus, the claim to which shall be guaranteed by possession of this document._

_“M. Scribonius Libo Drusus et al._

_“Administrators of M. Licinius Crassus, Consul Officiorum ab Famulatus . . .”_

 

He read this out loud before shaking his head and crumpling it up in his fist. His jaw was tight, his eyes hard through the dark lenses of his aviators. “Shouldn’t be surprised. It’d be like them to keep paperwork. But here, this is all I can give,” He spoke as he handed her a small bag of caps, which she slowly took from him. “I think our dealings are done here.”

 

“You know . . . I _could_ use some help investigating ghouls up on the REPCONN testing site a little ways up. I’m following someone’s trail, and Manny knows where he’s gone off to. Only problem, is that Manny needs me to look into this before he’ll tell me. However, if my gut is correct, he’s going to tell me that this guy is either in Boulder City or New Vegas – probably been to both, knowing him,” She immediately spoke up, before he could turn and leave her with a dead body that needed disposing of. He stood there, gazing down at her and her slightly hesitant expression as she continued: “After I deal with this for Manny, and he tells me where this guy’s gone off to, I’ve got some business in those places that I need to clear up. People I need to talk to and get some answers from, like I said. There’s a pretty good chance I might run into some Legion assholes on the way there . . .”

 

“These . . . _people_ , you need to talk to . . . are these the assholes who shot you?” He asked while nodding to the scar that had bloomed out on her temple. It took a moment, but eventually, she gave a slow nod.

 

“Yes and no. The guy that shot me is the head honcho. He’s the one I need to talk to – the one I need answers from. The rest are cool, as far as I’m concerned. They were just following orders.”

 

It took a moment, but eventually, he nodded. “Okay . . . okay, sure. Didn’t plan on sticking around here for much longer, anyway.” He spoke, and she grinned and nodded. It was an infectious grin that lit up her eyes and her face. Boone looked away, lest it ensnare him far more than he wanted. “What’s your name? Think I should know it if I’m going to be covering for your ass in firefights from here on out.”

 

She gave a bright smile. “Roseline,” She spoke. “And you’re Boone, right?”

 

He nodded. “Craig Boone -- the one and only. But Roseline . . . that’s a unique name. How’d your parents come up with it?”

 

The bright smile disappeared from her face then, as she turned away from him. After a moment saturated with an awkward, pregnant silence, she answered him, her voice quiet and ominous. “They didn’t. Someone else gave me that name. I forgot what mine used to be, a long time ago.”

 

“Who?”

 

There was another long silence. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s long dead now.”

 

“Is he the guy who shot you?”

 

Boone didn’t know why he asked that question. He remembered her telling him the guy was in either Boulder City or New Vegas, alive, not dead. She shook her head. “No, that’s Benny who shot me. Wanderer never shot me,” She gave a caustic snort of laughter. “Fucker done a _lot_ of things to me, but he never shot me. Guess I can be thankful for that.”

 

Boone ignored her words. “ _Wanderer_? What kinda name is that?”

 

She gave a shrug. “Dunno. Never knew him by anything different. As far as I know, _nobody_ knew him by anything different – not even his closest friends . . . what friends those were, anyway, considering they were just as evil and twisted as he was. I don’t know though,” She gave a shrug. “Jericho could be alright, when he wasn’t drunk, and getting paid on time. But Carolina and Eulogy . . .” She shuddered. “Anyway, no one knew his real name, except . . . except for maybe his father, but he stopped giving a shit about his father and what he thought long before he . . . _we_ started traveling together,” She gave another short, caustic laugh. “Used to go around referring to the man as ‘Daddy Dickhead’.”

 

He didn’t know who in the hell these people were, but he stayed silent. Boone sensed there was one hell of a story there, but didn’t push it. Like him with Carla’s story, he knew she wasn’t about to tell him about “Wanderer” until she was good and ready.

 

Which suited him just fine. If she had her own skeletons in the closet she didn’t want to talk about, then maybe she’d be a little more wary about pulling his out.

 


End file.
